SNL Financial Delivers a New Set of Upgrades to its Information Service Clients

Reorganized News coverage, Institutional Ownership Peer Comparison and extended Energy coverage lead a host of improvements in the latest product release

Charlottesville, VA (January 2, 2007) — SNL Financial, the leading sector-focused provider of essential business intelligence to investment banks, money managers and corporations, has announced a new series of enhancements to its information service, encompassing SNL Interactive (SNLi), SNLxl, and SNL IR Solutions.

Highlights among the many additions include:

- A complete makeover of News coverage and access on SNLi, including the addition of keyword email alerts; a consolidated subject listing; quicker navigation to original columns; and the introduction of "Issues in Focus," a comprehensive examination of the most urgent topics in SNL-covered industries. SNL's news team includes more than 50 reporters and editors dedicated to the business sectors we cover: Banks & Thrifts, Insurance, Financial Services, Real Estate, Energy and Media & Communications.

- Institutional Ownership Peer Comparison allows users to compare the ownership profile of a company against its peers via the Market Data and Company Briefing Book sections of SNLi. This functionality allows bankers, analysts, asset managers and IR pros to perform institutional prospecting, road show intelligence or competitor analysis through a single, simple interface.

- A comprehensive new SNL Energy dataset for the power, gas and coal markets includes Daily Operational & Awarded Capacity; Emissions Pricing & ISO Loads; Daily Nuclear Outage & Status; and a Rate Case Briefing Book that draws on the extensive archives of SNL subsidiary, Regulatory Research Associates (RRA).

- Version 2.3 of SNLxl, SNL's powerful Excel Add-In tool, provides more muscle for financial models with Advanced Query Options, Integrated Field Search and expanded market data -- including debt and commodity pricing -- in the SNLPrice Function.

- SNL IR Solutions, SNL's Web-hosting platform for investor relations, has added Dynamic Graphing of stock performance against peers and indexes; Investor Booklets; and page options for Capital Offerings and Insider Ownership.

Other SNL enhancements include Credit Research Reports, HMDA ethnicity data and Bond Price Graphing.

"Our customers frequently tell us that they find SNL to be indispensable in their day-to-day work," said Mike Chinn, SNL President. "That's proven by our 98% subscription renewal rate. And it's the driving force behind our frequent product upgrades and additions."

About SNL Financial

SNL collects, standardizes and disseminates all relevant corporate, financial, market, and M&A data — plus news and analysis — for the Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, Real Estate, Energy and Media & Communications industries. For more information, visit www.SNL.com.